Musée Patamécanique facts for kids
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| Established | 2006 |
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| Type | Private |
| Founder | Neil Barden Salley |
The Musée Patamécanique is a special kind of private museum located in a historic area of Bristol, Rhode Island. It was started in 2006 by an artist named Neil Barden Salley.
This museum is not always open to everyone. You can visit it by making an appointment, and it's mostly for friends and people who work with the founder. It's like a mix between a show with moving mechanical figures (called an automaton theater) and a cabinet of curiosities. A cabinet of curiosities is a collection of strange and interesting objects.
The museum shows art and inventions from something called 'Patamechanics.' This idea is like a playful science called 'Pataphysics.'
Contents
About the Museum's History
The Musée Patamécanique was created by Neil Barden Salley, who is an artist, inventor, and filmmaker. He started it in 2006. While he was studying at the Rhode Island School of Design (a famous art school), Salley began to make shows and moving sculptures. These ideas later became part of the museum.
The museum first opened as an exhibit in a barn. This barn was behind Linden Place, a historic house museum built in 1810. In 2009, the exhibit closed so the barn could be fixed up. That barn later became the Bristol Art Museum.
Work on a bigger Musée Patamécanique started in 2009 and finished in 2013. The museum opened again for tours on April 1, 2014. Daren Elsa NiBelly helped to guide the exhibits.
What "Patamécanique" Means
The name "Musée Patamécanique" comes from French and means "The museum of Patamechanics." Neil Salley came up with the word "Patamechanics" when he was at the Rhode Island School of Design. It comes from an older idea called "Pataphysics."
According to the museum's website, Patamechanics is about how physical things act when they are affected by playful, imaginative forces. It also looks at what happens to these things and their surroundings.
Exploring the Exhibits
Many things in the Musée Patamécanique are connected to art movements like Dada and Theater of the Absurd. These movements often used humor and strange ideas. The museum also uses ideas from modern books, unusual buildings, and theories about memory and identity. It explores how we see things and how machines can imitate life.
The newer version of the museum includes tours of both outdoor and indoor areas. These areas are all within a six-block part of downtown Bristol. The tour starts with a walking trip that focuses on sounds, beginning at sunset. This walk leads visitors to the "secret" indoor exhibit. This indoor part is in a building called Patamechanics Hall, which Salley built himself. It's an example of unusual architecture.
Unique Collections
The Musée Patamécanique has artistic, pretend-scientific, and very unusual exhibits. Many of these are shown in Patamechanics Hall, which is like a walk-in cabinet of curiosity.
Some examples of what you might see include:
- A group of singing robot chipmunks (which Salley made with his father).
- A "time machine" that the museum says is the world's largest automated phenakistascope. A phenakistascope is an old device that makes pictures look like they are moving.
- A clock that tells time using smells.
- A chandelier (a fancy hanging light) with singing robot nightingales.
- An "Undigestulator," which is a machine that supposedly puts digested food back together.
- The Earolin, a 24-inch tall holographic ear that plays the violin.
- A machine designed to capture the dreams of bumblebees.
See also
- List of museums in Rhode Island
- Rhode Island School of Design Museum
- Museum of Jurassic Technology
